Warm Shores

On National Windrush Day, Wednesday 22 June 2022, Hackney Council demonstrated its commitment to supporting the Windrush generation with the unveiling of a permanent public artwork “Warm Shores” by artist Thomas J Price in the Town Hall Square, honouring the borough’s Windrush community.

The larger than life figures are based on digital 3D images of over 30 Hackney residents with a personal connection to Windrush. The sculptures complete the ‘Hackney Windrush Artwork Commission’, established in partnership with Create London, with support from Art Fund and Freelands Foundation.

‘At 8.7ft and 9ft, Price’s sculptures are not just beautiful, but spectacular. Such size, and their being bronze – a material emphatically linked to representations of power – toys noisily with notions of status and authority, but even though the figures take up, and really claim their space, the honesty of their depiction, together with their everyday clothing, also makes them seem weirdly vulnerable.’

Lucy Davies for the Telegraph

Read full article here

‘It’s not a monument, it’s a celebration’

‘It was impossible not to be moved by seeing those who participated in the making of Warm Shores see the work for the first time. There were some tears but the atmosphere was joyous, with a touch of happy disbelief. Even Price seemed overcome by the enormity of the occasion. “It’s taken so much to get here,” he said. “It’s incredible, in terms of what I wanted my practice to move towards and achieve. To have a council commission feels surreal and gives me hope that people are starting to come around to discussions about the awareness of how we see each other and who is given space to just exist as human beings.”’

Amah-Rose Abrams for the Guardian

Read full article here